This report makes the case for all local agencies (local authorities, the police, health services and others) to examine what they spend on troubled families, how they spend it, and how effective that expenditure is in helping turn lives around and preventing the emergence of future troubled families. Public services cannot afford to spend their resources ineffectively when reacting to the social problems of these families. With the economic challenges that the country currently faces there is an even more powerful impetus to ensure this is not the case.
Of course there is a huge human cost of failing to intervene effectively with troubled families – and this has been set out in the two previous reports from the Troubled Families Team. However the financial costs are also important to understand and evaluate. There are figures and examples in this report that make this case starkly. We spend disproportionately more on troubled families than the ‘average’ family. For example, in West Cheshire, the council is spending an average of £7,795 on an average family in its area, compared to £76,190 for a troubled family.